Holiday Ghosts

Holiday Ghosts draw from vintage garage rock, surf sounds, and acts such as Violent Femmes, while early punk also shaped their approach. Their debut full-length arrived in September 2017 via PNKSLM Recordings after the project began as multi-instrumentalist Sam Stacpoole’s solo endeavor in Falmouth, England. That self-titled album emerged once Stacpoole had formed a duo with singer and drummer Kat Rackin of the Black Tambourines and then added bassist and vocalist Ben Woods plus guitarist and vocalist Charlie Murphy, all three of whom contributed songs. The loose, ’60s-rooted energy persisted on the cleaner, sweeter follow-up West Bay Playroom, released in February 2019 by a retooled quartet of Stacpoole, Rackin, guitarist Charlie Fairbairnon, and bassist Ryan Cleave.

North Street Air appeared in 2021 on FatCat Records with the core trio of Stacpoole, Rackin, and Murphy and reflected their move to Brighton. The same year the group continued mixing tuneful indie pop with urgent, clattery impulses while turning toward sociopolitical themes, a thread that ran through the Credit Note EP of July 2022—credited to Stacpoole, Rackin, second guitarist B. Spanks, and bassist Morgan Lloyd-Mathews—and into the spirited Absolute Reality of April 2023. The latter’s relative success brought Holiday Ghosts their largest U.K. headlining tour to date and their first journey to the United States for the March 2024 New Colossus and SXSW festivals. Their fifth album, Coat of Arms, followed later that month on FatCat, confirming the advantages of a stable, collaborative lineup across Absolute Reality and Coat of Arms.